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diff --git a/22710.txt b/22710.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..046a38a --- /dev/null +++ b/22710.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1183 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Folks' Party, by Edward Bellamy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Old Folks' Party + 1898 + +Author: Edward Bellamy + +Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22710] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FOLKS' PARTY *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE OLD FOLKS' PARTY + +By Edward Bellamy + +1898 + + +"And now what shall we do next Wednesday evening?" said Jessie Hyde, in +a business-like tone. "It is your turn, Henry, to suggest." + +Jessie was a practical, energetic young lady, whose blue eyes never +relapsed into the dreaminess to which that color is subject. She +furnished the "go" for the club. Especially she furnished the "go" for +Henry Long, who had lots of ideas, but without her to stir him up was as +dull as a flint without a steel. + +There were six in the club, and all were present to-night in Jessie's +parlor. The evening had been given to a little music, a little dancing, +a little card-playing, and a good deal of talking. It was near the hour +set by the club rule for the adjournment of its reunions, and the party +had drawn their chairs together to consult upon the weekly recurring +question, what should be done at the next meeting by way of special +order of amusement. The programmes were alternately reading, singing, +dancing, whist; varied with evenings of miscellaneous sociality like +that which had just passed. The members took turns in suggesting +recreations. To-night it was Henry Long's turn, and to him accordingly +the eyes of the group turned at Jessie's question. + +"Let's have an old folks' party," was his answer. + +Considering that all of the club were yet at ages when they celebrated +their birthdays with the figure printed on the cake, the suggestion +seemed sufficiently irrelevant. + +"In that case," said Frank Hays, "we shall have to stay at home." + +Frank was an alert little fellow, with a jaunty air, to whom, by tacit +consent, all the openings for jokes were left, as he had a taste that +way. + +"What do you mean, Henry?" inquired George Townsley, a thick-set, sedate +young man, with an intelligent, but rather phlegmatic look. + +"My idea is this," said Henry, leaning back in his chair, with his hands +clasped behind his head, and his long legs crossed before him. "Let us +dress up to resemble what we expect to look like fifty years hence, and +study up our demeanor to correspond with what we expect to be and feel +like at that time, and just call on Mary next Wednesday evening to talk +over old times, and recall what we can, if anything, of our vanished +youth, and the days when we belonged to the social club at C------." + +The others seemed rather puzzled in spite of the explanation. Jessie sat +looking at Henry in a brown study as she traced out his meaning. + +"You mean a sort of ghost party," said she finally; "ghosts of the +future, instead of ghosts of the past." + +"That's it exactly," answered he. "Ghosts of the future are the only +sort worth heeding. Apparitions of things past are a very unpractical +sort of demonology, in my opinion, compared with apparitions of things +to come." + +"How in the world did such an odd idea come into your head?" asked +pretty Nellie Tyrrell, whose dancing black eyes were the most piquant +of interrogation points, with which it was so delightful to be punctured +that people were generally slow to gratify her curiosity. + +"I was beginning a journal this afternoon," said Henry, "and the idea of +Henry Long, aetat. seventy, looking over the leaves, and wondering about +the youth who wrote them so long ago, came up to my mind." + +Henry's suggestion had set them all thinking, and the vein was so +unfamiliar that they did not at once find much to say. + +"I should think," finally remarked George, "that such an old folks' +party would afford a chance for some pretty careful study, and some +rather good acting." + +"Fifty years will make us all not far from seventy. What shall we look +like then, I wonder?" musingly asked Mary Fellows. + +She was the demurest, dreamiest of the three girls; the most of a woman, +and the least of a talker. She had that poise and repose of manner which +are necessary to make silence in company graceful. + +"We may be sure of one thing, anyhow, and that is, that we shall not +look and feel at all as we do now," said Frank. "I suppose," he added, +"if, by a gift of second sight, we could see tonight, as in a glass, +what we shall be at seventy, we should entirely fail to recognize +ourselves, and should fall to disputing which was which." + +"Yes, and we shall doubtless have changed as much in disposition as in +appearance," added Henry. "Now, for one, I 've no idea what sort of a +fellow my old man will turn out. I don't believe people can generally +tell much better what sort of old people will grow out of them than what +characters their children will have. A little better, perhaps, but not +much. Just think how different sets of faculties and tastes develop and +decay, come into prominence and retire into the background, as the years +pass. A trait scarcely noticeable in youth tinges the whole man in age." + +"What striking dramatic effects are lost because the drama of life is +spun out so long instead of having the ends brought together," observed +George. "The spectators lose the force of the contrasts because they +forget the first part of every role before the latter part is reached. +One fails in consequence to get a realizing sense of the sublime +inconsistencies of every lifetime." + +"That difficulty is what we propose, in a small way, to remedy next +Wednesday night," replied Henry. + +Mary professed some scruples. It was so queer, she thought it must be +wrong. It was like tempting Providence to take for granted issues in his +hands, and masquerade with uncreated things like their own yet unborn +selves. But Frank reminded her that the same objection would apply to +any arrangement as to what they should do next week. + +"Well, but," offered Jessie, "is it quite respectful to make sport of +old folks, even if they are ourselves?" + +"My conscience is clear on that point," said Frank. "It's the only way +we can get even with them for the deprecating, contemptuous way in which +they will allude to us over their snuff and tea, as callow and flighty +youth, if indeed they deign to remember us at all, which is n't likely." + +"I 'm all tangled up in my mind," said Nellie, with an air of +perplexity, "between these old people you are talking about and +ourselves. Which is which? It seems odd to talk of them in the third +person, and of ourselves in the first. Are n't they ourselves too?" + +"If they are, then certainly we are not," replied Henry. "You may take +your choice. + +"The fact is," he added, as she looked still more puzzled, "there are +half-a dozen of each one of us, or a dozen if you please, one in fact +for each epoch of life, and each slightly or almost wholly different +from the others. Each one of these epochs is foreign and inconceivable +to the others, as ourselves at seventy now are to us. It's as hard to +suppose ourselves old as to imagine swapping identities with another. +And when we get old it will be just as hard to realize that we were +ever young. So that the different periods of life are to all intents and +purposes different persons, and the first person of grammar ought to +be used only with the present tense. What we were, or shall be, or do, +belongs strictly to the third person." + +"You would make sad work of grammar with that notion," said Jessie, +smiling. + +"Grammar needs mending just there," replied Henry. "The three persons of +grammar are really not enough. A fourth is needed to distinguish the +ego of the past and future from the present ego, which is the only true +one." + +"Oh, you're getting altogether too deep for me," said Jessie. "Come, +girls, what in the world are we going to get to wear next Wednesday?" + +"Sure enough!" cried they with one accord, while the musing look in +their eyes gave place to a vivacious and merry expression. + +"My mother is n't near as old as we 're going to be. Her things won't +do," said Nellie. + +"Nor mine," echoed Jessie; "but perhaps Mary's grandmother will let us +have some of her things." + +"In that case," suggested Frank, "it will be only civil to invite her to +the party." + +"To be sure, why not?" agreed Jessie. "It is to be an 'old folks' +party, and her presence will give a reality to the thing." + +"I don't believe she 'll come," said George. "You see being old is dead +earnest to her, and she won't see the joke." + +But Mary said she would ask her anyway, and so that was settled. + +"My father is much too large in the waist for his clothes to be of any +service to me," said George lugubriously. + +But Frank reminded him that this was a hint as to his get-up, and that +he must stuff with pillows that the proverb might be fulfilled, "Like +father like son." + +And then they were rather taken aback by Henry's obvious suggestion that +there was no telling what the fashion in dress would be in a. d. 1925, +"even if," he added, "the scientists leave us any A. D. by that time," +though Frank remarked here that a. d. would answer just as well as _Anno +Darwinis_, if worst came to worst. But it was decided that there was no +use trying after prophetical accuracy in dress, since it was out of +the question, and even if attainable would not suggest age to their own +minds as would the elderly weeds which they were accustomed to see. + +"It's rather odd, is n't it," said Jessie gravely, "that it did n't +occur to anybody that in all probability not over one or two of us at +most will be alive fifty years hence." + +"Let's draw lots for the two victims, and the rest of us will appear as +ghosts," suggested Frank grimly. + +"Poor two," sighed Nellie. "I 'm sorry for them. How lonely they will +be. I'm glad I have n't got a very good constitution." + +But Henry remarked that Jessie might have gone further and said just as +truly that none of them would survive fifty years, or even ten. + +"We may, some of us, escape the pang of dying as long as that," said he, +"but that is but a trifle, and not a necessary incident of death. The +essence of mortality is change, and we shall be changed. Ten years will +see us very different persons. What though an old dotard calling himself +Henry Long is stumping around fifty years hence, what is that to me? I +shall have been dead a half century by that time." + +"The old gentleman you speak so lightly of will probably think more +tenderly of you than you do of him," said Jessie. + +"I don't believe it," answered Henry. "In fact, if we were entirely true +to nature next Wednesday, it would spoil the fun, for we probably should +not, if actually of the age we pretend, think of our youth once a year, +much less meet to talk it over." + +"Oh, I don't think so," protested Nellie. "I 'm sure all the story-books +and poetry say that old folks are much given to reviewing their youth in +a pensive, regretful sort of way." + +"That's all very pretty, but it 's all gammon in my opinion," responded +Henry. "The poets are young people who know nothing of how old folks +feel, and argue only from their theory of the romantic fitness of +things. I believe that reminiscence takes up a very small part of old +persons' time. It would furnish them little excitement, for they have +lost the feelings by which their memories would have to be interpreted +to become vivid. Remembering is dull business at best. I notice that +most persons, even of eventful lives, prefer a good novel to the +pleasures of recollection. It is really easier to sympathize with the +people in a novel or drama than with our past selves. We lose a +great source of recreation just because we can't recall the past more +vividly." + +"How shockingly Henry contradicts to-night," was the only reply Nellie +deigned to this long speech. + +"What shall we call each other next Wednesday?" asked Mary. "By our +first names, as now?" + +"Not if we are going to be prophetically accurate," said Henry. "Fifty +years hence, in all probability, we shall, most of us, have altogether +forgotten our present intimacies and formed others, quite inconceivable +now. I can imagine Frank over there, scratching his bald head with his +spectacle tips, and trying to recall me. 'Hen. Long, Hen. Long,--let +me think; name sounds familiar, and yet I can't quite place him. Did n't +I know him at C------, or was it at college? Bless me, how forgetful I +'m growing!'" + +They all laughed at Henry's bit of acting. Perhaps it was only sparkles +of mirth, but it might have been glances of tender confidence that shot +between certain pairs of eyes betokening something that feared not +time. This is in no sort a love story, but such things can't be wholly +prevented. + +The girls, however, protested that this talk about growing so utterly +away from each other was too dismal for anything, and they would n't +believe it anyhow. The old-fashioned notions about eternal constancy +were ever so much nicer. It gave them the cold shivers to hear Henry's +ante-mortem dissection of their friendship, and that young man was +finally forced to admit that the members of the club would probably +prove exceptions to the general rule in such matters. It was agreed, +therefore, that they should appear to know each other at the old folks' +party. + +"All you girls must, of course, be called 'Mrs.' instead of 'Miss,'" +suggested Frank, "though you will have to keep your own names, that +is, unless you prefer to disclose any designs you may have upon other +people's; "for which piece of impertinence Nellie, who sat next him, +boxed his ears,--for the reader must know that these young people were +on a footing of entire familiarity and long intimacy. + +"Do you know what time it is?" asked Mary, who, by virtue of the sweet +sedateness of her disposition, was rather the monitress of the company. + +"It's twelve o'clock, an hour after the club's curfew." + +"Well," remarked Henry, rousing from the fit of abstraction in which he +had been pursuing the subject of their previous discussion, "it was to +be expected we should get a little mixed as to chronology over such talk +as this." + +"With our watches set fifty years ahead, there 'll be no danger of +overstaying our time next Wednesday, anyhow," added Frank. + +Soon the girls presented themselves in readiness for outdoors, and, in a +pleasant gust of good-bys and parting jests, the party broke up. + +"Good-by for fifty years," Jessie called after them from the stoop, as +the merry couples walked away in the moonlight. + +The following week was one of numerous consultations among the girls. +Grandmother Fellows's wardrobe was pretty thoroughly rummaged under that +good-natured old lady's superintendence, and many were the queer effects +of old garments upon young figures which surprised the steady-going +mirror in her quiet chamber. + +"I 'm afraid I can never depend on it again," said Mrs. Fellows.' + +She had promised to be at the party. + +"She looked so grave when I first asked her," Mary explained to the +girls, "that I was sorry I spoke of it. I was afraid she thought we +wanted her only as a sort of convenience, to help out our pantomime by +the effect of her white hair. But in a minute she smiled in her cheery +way, and said, as if she saw right through me: 'I suppose, my child, you +think being old a sort of misfortune, like being hunchbacked or blind, +and are afraid of hurting my feelings, but you need n't be. The good +Lord has made it so that at whichever end of life we are, the other end +looks pretty uninteresting, and if it won't hurt your feelings to have +somebody in the party who has got through all the troubles you have yet +before you, I should be glad to come.' That was turning the tables for +us pretty neatly, eh, girls?" + +The young ladies would not have had the old lady guess it for worlds, +but truth compels me to own that all that week they improved every +opportunity furtively to study Mrs. Fellows's gait and manner, with a +view to perfecting their parts. + +Frank and George met a couple of times in Henry's room to smoke it +over and settle details, and Henry called on Jessie to arrange several +concerted features of the programme, and for some other reasons for +aught I know. + +As each one studied his or her part and strove in imagination to +conceive how they would act and feel as old men and old women, they grew +more interested, and more sensible of the mingled pathos and absurdity +of the project, and its decided general effect of queerness. They all +set themselves to make a study of old age in a manner that had never +occurred to them before, and never does occur to most people at all. +Never before had their elderly friends received so much attention at +their hands. + +In the prosecution of these observations they were impressed with the +entire lack of interest generally felt by people in the habits and +manners of persons in other epochs of life than their own. In respect +of age, as in so many other respects, the world lives on fiats, with +equally little interest in or comprehension of the levels above or below +them. And a surprising thing is that middle age is about as unable to +recall and realize youth as to anticipate age. Experience seems to go +for nothing in this matter. + +They thought they noticed, too, that old people are more alike than +middle-aged people. There is something of the same narrowness and +similarity in the range of their tastes and feelings that is marked in +children. The reason they thought to be that the interests of age have +contracted to about the same scope as those of childhood before it has +expanded into maturity. The skein of life is drawn together to a point +at the two ends and spread out in the middle. Middle age is the period +of most diversity, when individuality is most pronounced. The members of +the club observed with astonishment that, however affectionately we +may regard old persons, we no more think of becoming like them than +of becoming negroes. If we catch ourselves observing their senile +peculiarities, it is in a purely disinterested manner, with a complete +and genuine lack of any personal concern, as with a state to which we +are coming. + +They could not help wondering if Henry were not right about people never +really growing old, but just changing from one personality to another. +They found the strange inability of one epoch to understand or +appreciate the others, hard to reconcile with the ordinary notion of a +persistent identity. + +Before the end of the week, the occupation of their minds with the +subject of old age produced a singular effect. They began to regard +every event and feeling from a double standpoint, as present and as +past, as it appeared to them and as it would appear to an old person. + +Wednesday evening came at last, and a little before the hour of eight, +five venerable figures, more or less shrouded, might have been seen +making their way from different parts of the village toward the Fellows +mansion. The families of the members of the club were necessarily in the +secret, and watched their exit with considerable laughter from behind +blinds. But to the rest of the villagers it has never ceased to be a +puzzle who those elderly strangers were who appeared that evening and +were never before or since visible. For once the Argus-eyed curiosity of +a Yankee village, compared with which French or Austrian police are easy +to baffle, was fairly eluded. + +Eight o'clock was the hour at which the old folks' party began, and the +reader will need a fresh introduction to the company which was assembled +at that time in Mary Fellows's parlor. Mary sat by her grandmother, +who from time to time regarded her in a half-puzzled manner, as if it +required an effort of her reasoning powers to reassure her that the +effect she saw was an illusion. The girl's brown hair was gathered back +under a lace cap, and all that appeared outside it was thickly powdered. +She wore spectacles, and the warm tint of her cheeks had given place to +the opaque saffron hue of age. She sat with her hands in her lap, their +fresh color and dimpled contour concealed by black lace half-gloves. The +fullness of her young bosom was carefully disguised by the arrangement +of the severely simple black dress she wore, which was also in other +respects studiously adapted to conceal, by its stiff and angular lines, +the luxuriant contour of her figure. As she rose and advanced to welcome +Henry and Jessie, who were the last to arrive, it was with a striking +imitation of the tremulously precipitate step of age. + +Jessie, being rather taller than the others, had affected the stoop of +age very successfully. She wore a black dress spotted with white, and +her whitened hair was arranged with a high comb. She was the only one +without spectacles or eyeglasses. Henry looked older and feebler than +any of the company. His scant hair hung in thin and long white locks, +and his tall, slender figure had gained a still more meagre effect from +his dress, while his shoulders were bowed in a marked stoop; his gait +was rigid and jerky. He assisted himself with a gold-headed cane, and +sat in his chair leaning forward upon it. + +George, on the other hand, had followed the hint of his father's figure +in his make-up, and appeared as a rubicund old gentleman, large in the +waist, bald, with an apoplectic tendency, a wheezy asthmatic voice, and +a full white beard. + +Nellie wore her hair in a row of white curls on each side of her head, +and in every detail of her dress and air affected the coquettish old +lady to perfection, for which, of course, she looked none the younger. +Her cheeks were rouged to go with that style. + +Frank was the ideal of the sprightly little old gentleman. With his +brisk air, natty eye-glasses, cane and gloves, and other items of dress +in the most correct taste, he was quite the old beau. His white hair was +crispy, brushed back, and his snowy mustache had rather a rakish effect. + +Although the transformation in each case was complete, yet quite +enough of the features, expression, or bearing was apparent through the +disguise to make the members of the party entirely recognizable to each +other, though less intimate acquaintances would perhaps have been at +first rather puzzled. At Henry's suggestion they had been photographed +in their costumes, in order to compare the ideal with the actual when +they should be really old. + +"It is n't much trouble, and the old folks will enjoy it some day. We +ought to consider them a little," Henry had said, meaning by "the old +folks" their future selves. + +It had been agreed that, in proper deference to the probabilities, one, +at least, of the girls ought to illustrate the fat old lady. But they +found it impossible to agree which should sacrifice herself, for no +one of the three could, in her histrionic enthusiasm, quite forget her +personal appearance. Nellie flatly refused to be made up fat, and Jessie +as flatly, while both the girls had too much reverence for the sweet +dignity of Mary Fellows's beauty to consent to her taking the part, and +so the idea was given up. + +It had been a happy thought of Mary's to get her two younger sisters, +girls of eleven and sixteen, to be present, to enhance the venerable +appearance of the party by the contrast of their bloom and freshness. + +"Are these your little granddaughters?" inquired Henry, benevolently +inspecting them over the tops of his spectacles as he patted the elder +of the two on the head, a liberty she would by no means have allowed +him in his proper character, but which she now seemed puzzled whether to +resent or not. + +"Yes," replied Mary, with an indulgent smile. "They wanted to see what +an old folks' party was like, though I told them they wouldn't enjoy it +much. I remember I thought old people rather dull when I was their age." + +Henry made a little conversation with the girls, asking them the list +of fatuous questions by which adults seem fated to illustrate the gulf +between them and childhood in the effort to bridge it. + +"Annie, dear, just put that ottoman at Mrs. Hyde's feet," said Mary to +one of the little girls. "I 'm so glad you felt able to come out this +evening, Mrs. Hyde! I understood you had not enjoyed good health this +summer." + +"I have scarcely been out of my room since spring, until recently," +replied Jessie. "Thank you, my dear" (to the little girl); "but Dr. +Sanford has done wonders for me. How is your health now, Mrs. Fellows?" + +"I have not been so well an entire summer in ten years. My daughter, +Mrs. Tarbox, was saying the other day that she wished she had my +strength. You know she is quite delicate," said Mary. + +"Speaking of Dr. Sanford," said Henry, looking at Jessie, "he is really +a remarkable man. My son has such confidence in him that he seemed quite +relieved when I had passed my grand climacteric and could get on his +list. You know he takes no one under sixty-three. By the way, governor," +he added, turning around with some ado, so as to face George, "I heard +he had been treating your rheumatism lately. Has he seemed to reach the +difficulty?" + +"Remarkably," replied George, tenderly stroking his right knee in an +absent manner. "Why, don't you think I walked half the way home from my +office the other day when my carriage was late?" + +"I wonder you dared venture it," said Jessie, with a shocked air. "What +if you had met with some accident!" + +"That's what my son said," answered George. "He made me promise never +to try such a thing again; but I like to show them occasionally that I'm +good for something yet." + +He said this with a "he, he," of senile complacency, ending in an +asthmatic cough, which caused some commotion in the company. Frank +got up and slapped him on the back, and Mary sent Annie for a glass of +water. + +George being relieved, and quiet once more restored, Henry said to +Frank:-- + +"By the way, doctor, I want to congratulate you on your son's last book. +You must have helped him to the material for so truthful a picture of +American manners in the days when we were young. I fear we have not +improved much since then. There was a simplicity, a naturalness in +society fifty years ago, that one looks in vain for now. There was, it +seems to me, much less regard paid to money, and less of morbid social +ambition. Don't you think so, Mrs. Tyrrell?" + +"It's just what I was saying only the other day," replied Nellie. "I'm +sure I don't know what we 're coming to nowadays. Girls had some modesty +when I was young," and she shook her head with its rows of white curls +with an air of mingled reprobation and despair. + +"Did you attend Professor Merryweather's lecture last evening, Mrs. +Hyde?" asked Frank, adjusting his eye-glasses and fixing Jessie with +that intensity of look by which old persons have to make up for their +failing eyesight. "The hall was so near your house, I did n't know but +you would feel like venturing out." + +"My daughters insisted on my taking advantage of the opportunity, it is +so seldom I go anywhere of an evening," replied Jessie, "and I was very +much interested, though I lost a good deal owing to the carrying on of +a young couple in front of me. When I was a girl, young folks didn't do +their courting in public." + +Mary had not heard of the lecture, and Frank explained that it was one +of the ter-semi-centennial course on American society and politics fifty +years ago. + +"By the way," remarked George, "did you observe what difficulty they +are having in finding enough survivors of the civil war to make a +respectable squad. The papers say that not over a dozen of both armies +can probably be secured, and some of the cases are thought doubtful at +that." + +"Is it possible!" said Henry. "And yet, too, it must be so; but it +sounds strangely to one who remembers as if it were yesterday seeing +the grand review of the Federal armies at Washington just after the war. +What a host of strong men was that, and now scarcely a dozen left. My +friends, we are getting to be old people. We are almost through with +it." + +Henry sat gazing into vacancy over the tops of his spectacles, while the +old ladies wiped theirs and sniffed and sighed a little. Finally Jessie +said:-- + +"Those were heroic days. My little granddaughters never tire of hearing +stories about them. They are strong partisans, too. Jessie is a fierce +little rebel and Sam is an uncompromising Unionist, only they both agree +in denouncing slavery." + +"That reminds me," said Frank, smiling, "that our little Frankie came to +me yesterday with a black eye he got for telling Judge Benson's little +boy that people of his complexion were once slaves. He had read it in +his history, and appealed to me to know if it was n't true." + +"I 'm not a bit surprised that the little Benson boy resented the +imputation," said George. "I really don't believe that more than half +the people would be certain that slavery ever existed here, and I +'m sure that it rarely occurs to those who do know it. No doubt that +company of old slaves at the centennial--that is, if they can find +enough survivors--will be a valuable historical reminder to many." + +"Dr. Hays," said Nellie, "will you settle a question between Mrs. Hyde +and myself? Were you in C------, it was then only a village, along +between 1870 and '80, about forty or fifty years ago?" + +"No--and yet, come to think--let me see--when did you say?" replied +Frank doubtfully. + +"Between 1870 and '80, as nearly as we can make out, probably about the +middle of the decade," said Nellie. + +"I think I was in C------ at about that time. I believe I was still +living with my father's family." + +"I told you so," said Nellie to Jessie, and, turning again to Frank, she +asked:-- + +"Do you remember anything about a social club there?" + +"I do," replied Frank, with some appearance of interest. "I recall +something of the sort quite distinctly, though I suppose I have n't +thought of it for twenty years. How did you ever hear of it, Mrs. Hyde?" + +"Why, I was a member," replied she briskly, "and so was Mrs. Tyrrell. We +were reminded of it the other day by a discovery Mrs. Tyrrell made in an +old bureau drawer of a photograph of the members of the club in a group, +taken probably all of fifty years ago, and yellow as you can imagine. +There was one figure that resembled you, doctor, as you might have +looked then, and I thought, too, that I recalled you as one of the +members; but Mrs. Tyrrell could not, and so we agreed to settle the +matter by appealing to your own recollection." + +"Yes, indeed," said Frank, "I now recall the club very perfectly, and it +seems to me Governor Townsley was also in it." + +"Yes, I think I was a member," assented George, "though my recollections +are rather hazy." + +Mary and Henry, being appealed to, failed to remember anything about the +club, the latter suggesting that probably it flourished before he came +to C------. Jessie was quite sure she recalled Henry, but the others +could not do so with much positiveness. + +"I will ask Mrs. Long when I get home," said Henry. "She has always +lived at C------, and is great for remembering dates. Let's see; what +time do you think it was?" + +"Mrs. Tyrrell and I concluded it must have been between. 1873 and 1877," +said Jessie; adding slyly, "for she was married in 1877. Mrs. Tyrrell, +did you bring that old photograph with you? It might amuse them to look +at it." + +Nellie produced a small picture, and, adjusting their spectacles and +eye-glasses, they all came forward to see it. A group of six young +people was represented, all in the very heyday of youth. The spectators +were silent, looking first at the picture, and then at each other. + +"Can it be," said Frank, "that these were ever our pictures? I hope, +Mrs. Tyrrell, the originals had the forethought to put the names on the +back, that we may be able to identify them." + +"No," said she, "we must guess as best we can. First, who is that?" +pointing to one of the figures. + +"That must be Mrs. Hyde, for she is taller than the others," suggested +Grandma Fellows. + +"By the same token, that must be Mrs. Tyrrell, for she is shorter," said +Jessie; "though, but for that, I don't see how we could have told them +apart." + +"How oddly they did dress in those days!" said Mary. + +"Who can that be?" asked Frank, pointing to the finest-looking of the +three young men. "If that is one of us, there was more choice in our +looks than there is now,--eh, Townsley?" + +"No doubt," said George, "fifty years ago somebody's eye scanned those +features with a very keen sense of proprietorship. What a queer feeling +it would have given those young things to have anticipated that we +should ever puzzle over their identities in this way!" + +They finally agreed on the identity of Jessie, Nellie, and Frank, and +of George also, on his assuring them that he was once of slender figure. +This left two figures which nobody could recognize, though Jessie +insisted that the gentleman was Henry, and Mary thought the other young +lady was a Miss Fellows, a girl of the village, who, she explained, had +died young many, many years ago. + +"Don't you remember her?" she asked them, and her voice trembled with +a half-genuine sort of self-pity, as if, for a moment, she imagined +herself her own ghost. + +"I recall her well," said Frank; "tall, grave, sweet, I remember she +used to realize to me the abstraction of moral beauty when we were +studying Paley together." + +"I don't know when I have thought so much of those days as since I +received cards for your golden wedding, Judge," said Nellie to Henry, +soon after. "How many of those who were present at your wedding will be +present at your golden wedding, do you suppose?" + +"Not more than two or three," replied Henry, "and yet the whole village +was at the wedding." + +"Thank God," he said a moment after, "that our friends scatter before +they die. Otherwise old people like us would do nothing but attend +funerals during the last half of our lives. Parting is sad, but I prefer +to part from my friends while they are yet alive, that I may feel it +less when they die. One must manage his feelings or they will get the +better of him." + +"It is a singular sensation," said George, "to outlive one's generation. +One has at times a guilty sense of having deserted his comrades. It +seems natural enough to outlive any one contemporary, but unnatural +to survive them as a mass,--a sort of risky thing, fraught with the +various vague embarrassments and undefined perils threatening one who +is out of his proper place. And yet one does n't want to die, though +convinced he ought to, and that's the cowardly misery of it." + +"Yes," said Henry, "I had that feeling pretty strongly when I attended +the last reunion of our alumni, and found not one survivor within five +classes of me. I was isolated. Death had got into my rear and cut me +off. I felt ashamed and thoroughly miserable." + +Soon after, tea was served. Frank vindicated his character as an old +beau by a tottering alacrity in serving the ladies, while George and +Henry, by virtue of their more evident infirmity, sat still and allowed +themselves to be served. One or two declined tea as not agreeing with +them at that hour. + +The loquacious herb gave a fresh impulse to the conversation, and the +party fell to talking in a broken, interjectory way of youthful scenes +and experiences, each contributing some reminiscence, and the others +chiming in and adding scraps, or perhaps confessing their inability to +recall the occurrences. + +"What a refinement of cruelty it is," said Henry at last, "that makes +even those experiences which were unpleasant or indifferent when passing +look so mockingly beautiful when hopelessly past." + +"Oh, that's not the right way to look at it, Judge," broke in Grandma +Fellows, with mild reproof. "Just think rather how dull life would be, +looking forward or backward, if past or coming experiences seemed as +uninteresting as they mostly are when right at hand." + +"Sweet memories are like moonlight," said Jessie musingly. "They make +one melancholy, however pleasing they may be. I don't see why, any more +than why moonlight is so sad, spite of its beauty; but so it is." + +The fragile tenure of the sense of personal identity is illustrated by +the ease and completeness with which actors can put themselves in the +place of the characters they assume, so that even their instinctive +demeanor corresponds to the ideal, and their acting becomes nature. Such +was the experience of the members of the club. The occupation of their +mind during the week with the study of their assumed characters had +produced an impression that had been deepened to an astonishing degree +by the striking effect of the accessories of costume and manner. The +long-continued effort to project themselves mentally into the period of +old age was assisted in a startling manner by the illusion of the senses +produced by the decrepit figures, the sallow and wrinkled faces, and the +white heads of the group. + +Their acting had become spontaneous. They were perplexed and bewildered +as to their identity, and in a manner carried away by the illusion their +own efforts had created. In some of the earlier conversation of the +evening there had been occasional jests and personalities, but the +talk had now become entirely serious. The pathos and melancholy of the +retrospections in which they were indulging became real. All felt that +if it was acting now, it was but the rehearsal of a coming reality. I +think some of them were for a little while not clearly conscious that it +was not already reality, and that their youth was not forever vanished. +The sense of age was weighing on them like a nightmare. In very +self-pity voices began to tremble and bosoms heaved with suppressed +sobs. + +Mary rose and stepped to the piano. It indicated how fully she had +realized her part that, as she passed the mirror, no involuntary start +testified to surprise at the aged figure it reflected. She played in a +minor key an air to the words of Tennyson's matchless piece of pathos, +-- + +"The days that are no more," accompanying herself with a voice rich, +strong, and sweet. By the time she had finished, the girls were all +crying. + +Suddenly Henry sprang to his feet, and, with the strained, uncertain +voice of one waking himself from a nightmare, cried:-- + +"Thank God, thank God, it is only a dream," and tore off the wig, +letting the brown hair fall about his forehead. Instantly all followed +his example, and in a moment the transformation was effected. Brown, +black, and golden hair was flying free; rosy cheeks were shining through +the powder where handkerchiefs had been hastily applied, and the +bent and tottering figures of a moment ago had given place to +broad-shouldered men and full-breasted girls. Henry caught Jessie around +the waist, Frank Nellie, and George Mary, and with one of the little +girls at the piano, up and down the room they dashed to the merriest of +waltzes in the maddest round that ever was danced. There was a reckless +abandon in their glee, as if the lust of life, the glow and fire of +youth, its glorious freedom, and its sense of boundless wealth, suddenly +set free, after long repression, had intoxicated them with its strong +fumes. It was such a moment as their lifetime would not bring again. + +It was not till, flushed and panting, laughing and exhausted, they came +to a pause, that they thought of Grandma Fellows. She was crying, and +yet smiling through her tears. + +"Oh, grandma," cried Mary, throwing her arms around her, and bursting +into tears, "we can't take you back with us. Oh, dear." + +And the other girls cried over her, and kissed her in a piteous, tender +way, feeling as if their hearts would break for the pity of it. And +the young men were conscious of moisture about the eyes as they stood +looking on. + +But Grandma Fellows smiled cheerily, and said:-- + +"I'm a foolish old woman to cry, and you mustn't think it is because I +want to be young again. It's only because I can't help it." + +Perhaps she could n't have explained it better. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Old Folks' Party, by Edward Bellamy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OLD FOLKS' PARTY *** + +***** This file should be named 22710.txt or 22710.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/7/1/22710/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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